Archive for the ‘book review’ Category

The inundation of book reviews and lack of real entries? That’s because I’m doing nothing but reading and studying for the GRE….

That Summer has the hallmarks I love and find unique about Sarah Dessen’s books. Her protagonists aren’t extraordinary, and the world does not shift with their movements. Indeed, Haven’s life during That Summer is not too different from any teenager’s life during a particularly difficult summer. She does not fall in love, have tragedy occur or encounter significant loss or disease. Indeed, this changes in Dessen’s later books, so I enjoyed it here. Her writing style is also evident in this first novel, with a tendency to revel the past in long explanation, which though possibly frowned upon, I sort of like.

The thing is, I can definitely pin this as a first novel. Some plot points could use definite revision. For instance, Haven’s revelation about her sister’s ex-boyfriend was not a revelation to me. As soon as the second girl, the sister’s friend, was introduced I knew that something had happened between them. Having this girl be a member of her sister’s friends-group before the boyfriend might have made things a little bit more mysterious. Really, I wouldn’t have minded a relationship between Haven and Sumner. Nice and scandalous that, but I guess it doesn’t happen in real life….

On a side note, it was fun reading this thirteen years after its publication. No cellphones, no internet. Kids lazily wandering the neighborhood on a summer’s day, not engrossed by Gameboys. Oh how we change…

I read Shadow of the Giant in one day, after ordering it from my Amazon wishlist. As opposed to Shadow Puppets which I grabbed as soon as it came out I forgot about this one for a long time, though I did want to know what happened to Petra, Bean and their babies. I have to say that I was a little disappointed. The overall story is good, but I felt there was too much focus on the third-party characters who do not mean as much to the reader. Also, and though I have noticed in Card’s books before it was more here, there are huge chunks of plot-revealing dialogue that just get old. I also feel that sending Bean out to space just as he did Ender was a bit of a cop-out, though the one-missing child arc is interesting. I also predicted the Peter and Petra ending during the first chapter of the book. I feel like Card is stretching these out unnecessarily, to be honest, as a fan of the Ender’s Game/Shadow books since I was fourteen I kind of wish he would stop and leave us with the glory that is the first few books.

I love Woolf. To the Lighthouse is probably one of my favorite books ever. The Voyage out is not quite what I was expecting. It’s written in a narrative-style reminiscent of the typical novel of the period, and not quite what I had grown to expect from Woolf. The prose was fantastic, and she manages to capture little ideas and emotions that are generally not dealt with in books. For instance, at one point the main character feels irritated with the actions of all of those around her, merely because she is lost in thought and does not want to be interrupted. Who hasn’t felt that?

I think my problem with the book may be the fact that the back cover synopsis of the Barnes and Noble Classics edition did not feel at all like the book. In a nutshell it said “Helen notices Rachel is growing up when her engagement to Terrence Hewet starts to go badly”. Well, when you take into account Hewet doesn’t even show up ’til midway through the book and they’re not engaged until mid-way through and Helen is less mature than her niece and…well, not so much Barnes and Noble synopsis-folks.

The nature of the feminine struggle, more explicitly dealt with in A Room of One’s own, is prominent in this book. Woolf deftly portrays views on either side of the debate, and whilst to the modern reader the fact that the lives of men and women are disparate is slightly absurd, this novel makes one realize how real the struggle really was.

I technically started this book in September, but I set it aside for a while and didn’t finish it until last week. Towards the end I had to force myself to read fifty pages a day just to finish it. That said, it’s not a completely horrible book, but I was not a fan.

Too many of the occurrences were amazingly contrived. For instance, the main character, Lucy Snowe moves to an entirely different country and yet still manages to run into her godmother and, in a completely different fashion, a little girl for whom her godmother cared for ten years apart? No, don’t think so.

Also, Brontë’s prose, while brilliant, is very often preach-y. A big thing she seemed passionate about in this book was the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. But this was not too well-woven into the story. Long passages devoted to it exist instead, just barely tied onto the characters.

I liked the main character, but thought her final relationship was a bit disappointing. She ends up with a man who has tormented her for most of the book, in a very condescending way. She seems to end up with him because she is sympathetic to his past and he buys her a school.

Still, it’s got some interesting characters, but not one I’d read again.

Called “A portrait of Harper Lee” by the author, I would call this: “A portrait of Harper Lee, but not the details people really care about”, but that’s me. Honestly, it seems to be a little bit more about Truman Capote than his friend Nelle Harper Lee. Personally, I would have liked to spend a little less time in the novel talking about her time helping Capote with “In Cold Blood” I also thought that there was too much talk about the people that surrounded Lee.

I was interested in the little details about the similarities between Lee’s childhood and the world of Maycomb she portrays in the novel; and the looks into the reasons that she did not write a second novel, but I also somewhat disapprove of the fact that the book was written directly against Harper Lee’s wishes.

I first read this book in my sophomore year of high school, after my Chemistry teacher lent it to me and bought it for myself this week after being reminded of it by the new movie Enchanted. Very far removed from Card’s Ender series this book still shows his calling cards especially in the beginning when the reader is introduced to Ivan, a precocious ten-year-old. The rest of the story, though, bears little resemblance to the space-based world of the other tales. Card explores a different world in this tale, the fantasy what-if of: “What if Sleeping Beauty was awakened in Russia in 1992?”

What I find amazing in this book is the incredible mix of Russian folklore, Jewish and Christian history, contemporary politics and just good story telling. The classic Russian arch-nemesis, Baba Yaga is after the kingdom of the gorgeous princess Katerina. Ivan, who just happens to be a scholar of ancient tongues, understands her proto-slavic, and is taken back to her time, 900 AD, to become her husband.

A modern athlete, but not suited for medieval living, he works hard to fit in with her time while also wishing to go home. He is not immediately attached to his fiancée either, and they do not really fall in love until he brings her back to the US in 1992 where his family emigrated. They make the plans needed to attempt to defeat Baba Yaga’s army with the help of his mother (a witch, which he only finds out when Katerina recognizes it)

Although some of this feels a bit contrived, within the novel it works well, is woven together with just a hint of mystery at the end to imply that there is more under the surface that the reader is not allowed to know. It may be the case that Card himself didn’t know, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. I love this book for it’s wonderful mix of fairy tale and modernity and highly recommend it.

I picked this book up the other day, buying a copy for a friend for Christmas and then buying one for myself, just to read it.

It focuses mainly on West Coast sororities, at big schools which I don’t doubt are party schools in the first place. The book follows four girls, three in the same sorority and one in another, through a year of school. Throughout the narrative, the author cites different accounts and studies also having to do with sorority life. It seems to be a well-researched and in-depth description of sorority life.

Except… not much of it rang a bell with me. I’m a sorority girl, yes. I party more than some college students, maybe. I have chapter once a week, ritual, recruitment. There’s girl drama, of course, but… we don’t haze. We have eight girls tops in the house, not a hundred. We dn’t turn people down because they’re not tall and blue-eyed, or if they’re disabled. We have girls of many nationalities, we have girls that don’t drink.

Even the one sorority on campus that probably most closely resembles the ones in the book has girls that I adore; that work hard in school and aren’t necessarily just party girls. And, really, the service, co-ed, fraternity that I pledged this year had more work for only pledges to do, and more that could be seen as “hazing” than my sorority did.

So while I am sure that the book is a good investigation into many sororities, I did not find that it is a good generalization of all Greek life. So, don’t judge us all by Legally Blone, or this book either.

I’m not too into non-fiction, not gonna lie, but I decided to read this as soon as I saw it, because as many know, I am addicted to Starbucks. This book was very interesting, and I learned a lot about the history of coffee and about the company which was mainly why I bought it. It was clear in reading it that the author, a journalist, set out rather biasedly to speak against Starbucks, but was not really able to succeed.

Yes, there were a few things to speak negatively about, free trade, expensive coffee, paying mostly for milk and so on. However, he had to admit the differences between Starbucks and other chains such as McDonald’s and other things that were mostly ambiguous. It definitely would not stop me from getting Starbucks and it was educational as well.

Memoirs of a Geisha
I know, who hasn’t read this, what with the movie and everything, but I admit that I hadn’t. I borrowed it from a friend in September and have been reading it off and on since. It’s a good book, and a really good introduction to a culture i didn’t know much about. The characters are well developed and interesting, and it’s not too confusing. It had been a while since I saw the movie, but having seen it helped me picture things well too.

However, I lost interest a little bit in the book at the same point as I had in the movie, around the part when they are worried about Chiyo’s virginity. the action dies down a bit, but I really liked the ending. It definitely fit better than the movie.

Overall, I liked the book, but it’s probably not one I’ll reread too many times, but it was a good read.

I first discovered Diana Wynne Jones when I was twelve and shelving books in our middle school library. There I found Witch Week which I love. Since then I’ve read and reread all of the Chrestomanci books, and several of her other books, and always loved them. She’s a fantastic author.

The Pinhoe egg is very good. It explores more of Chrestomanci and Cat’s worlds, it has griffins and magical creatures… but honestly? After the others, it is a bit of a let down. The action takes a long while to build up, and then climaxes quickly with no real “the characters figure things out for themselves” per say. No real danger in a typical way for her books. So, whilst I liked it, I don’t find it comparable to her other books.